The Conspiracy
by Puppeteer of the Realms
Summary: AU/OC story. Chronos, commander of an elite squad of operatives, is beginning to question the motives of his superiors as he investigates a series of strange occurrences coinciding with the disappearance of his brothers-in-arms. Little does he know, an invisible force is digging up history and pulling them all into an uncertain future. Some chapters will be M-Rated for violence.
1. Approach

Author Note: I'd like to take a moment to clarify a few things before hand: Later in the story, I will be including canon characters where for the time being I will not yet add those names to the story description, for spoiler-defense purposes. Also, whenever a new character is introduced, (for example, chapters 1-4) those chapters will be shorter for introductory purposes, but will lengthen over time.

Thank you for your time, and thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy my first tale of intrigue.  
See you on the other side~

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**DISCLAIMER: I do not own or claim to own Invader Zim in any way, the copyright goes to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon  
Also, I'd like to say in advance that in this story I have altered many aspects of the IZ universe to support it**

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2176  
The Outer Edge, Designate: Etherium  
Planetary time: 1600 hours

The standard protocols for re-entry in the ship sprang to life as gravity returned, waking Chronos from his chemical and cryo induced coma in the process. Like all Irken, Chronos did not sleep, so attaining a state of unconsciousness was very difficult. Coupling this with the theoretical life-spans of Irken, (theoretical at best, after all, how do you gauge the life span of a life form unaffected by time?) it made sub-light-speed travel agonizingly boring. So why not catch some artificial Z's on the flight?

Trying to Shrug off the grogginess of his faux slumber, Chronos removed the straps binding him to the bunk. Attempting to stand while using a nearby hand brace for stability, he failed as his efforts were met by gravity, followed by anger, then followed by an acute awareness of his throbbing headache. He hated how inefficient the cryogenic system in his PAK was, outdated as it was.

Eventually making his way to the bridge of the small stealth cruiser, Chronos checked the readout on the observation deck. The data streaming across the screen told him what he already knew: he was on an approach vector for Etherium, a planet near the outer reaches of the Irken Empire.

Etherium had once been an oasis, a pale blue orb of sanctuary, and serenity. Chronos had only been here once before, and would call Etherium a paradise to behold. The world was perfectly temperate to allow a kaleidoscope of plant, animal, and insect life to thrive. The planet was colonized and settled millennia ago by a coalition of alien races who then called Etherium home, without tampering with the delicate ecosystem and molding the world into a multicultural hub.

In recent years however, as the war machine of the Irken Empire accelerated into Operation Impending Doom III, Etherium has fallen into the strife of the Empire and its conflicts. Operation Impending Doom enlists the best of the best Irken soldiers in the Great Assigning to infiltrate enemy worlds and bring them down from the inside, nearly single handedly. After Operation Impending Doom II and the cataclysm known as The Purge, the Empire can no longer afford to wait for invaders to conquer civilizations from the inside. For the first time since the contact wars, the Armada engaged in frontline naval combat, leveling most opposition unwilling, or unwise enough to get out of the way.

It's been three years since Etherium came under fire. Three long years since Etherium burned.

Approaching Etherium allowed the onboard cameras to send images of the glowing sphere to the purple tinted screens in front of Chronos. He assumed an iron like visage at the pitiful sight as a once beautiful world now maintained a hellish orange-red fluorescence outlining glassed continents. _Don't get caught in the sight of it, remember why you're here_, he thought to himself.

He had requested deployment to Etherium to keep tabs on his team: Hades First Descent. First Descent fire teams were the answer to invaders. The Hades corps was legendary, as well being commanded by none other than Chronos.

These fire teams did not infiltrate to blend in with a target civilization, they took key regions by force overnight allowing for a full scale occupation by the Armada. It was quick, dirty, and underhanded, but someone had to do it. At least, that's what they had been ordered to do.

Red caution lights flared to life. "Alert. Atmospheric re-entry in ten minutes," the artificial intelligence bellowed over the intercom. The female voice startled Chronos, as the ship was originally equipped with a male AI. Chronos decided to ask Gidget about any other changes to his personal cruiser later.

He started putting on the prototype stealth armor stowed away in the armory. As the hull of the vessel started shaking more and more, he realized he didn't have enough time. "Alter descent vector by fifteen degrees," he said in no particular direction, knowing she would hear.

"Confirmed," the AI responded as expected, "Re-entry in twenty minutes."

Something was bothering him, "Where is the signature dampener for my armor?" he asked, and realized his helmet was also missing.

"There is no personnel signature dampener onboard," she answered.

Chronos stopped in his tracks, confused. "What?"

"Repeat, there is no signature dampener onboard this vessel. Although I did find a rather strange entity in the cargo bay," she responded in a somewhat curious tone.

Curiosity in an AI usually never bode well. "What is in the cargo bay that's so special?" hoping it was nothing, he moved to the rear of the ship.

"I don't know."

He stopped in his tracks again, "What?"

"All I can find is empty space, which on a pressurized vessel is pretty damn hard to do."

_Dammit Gidget, what kind of broken AI have you given me? And what's with that casual tone? _he thought to himself. Grabbing an anti-material ballistic rifle on the way, Chronos rushed to the back of the cruiser. Hefting the automatic rifle to his shoulder and scanning the room, he lowered the rifle and thought, _If it were a spider, it would have bit me. _Out loud he spoke, "How did this get onboard?" as he looked down to a small black box.

"I'm still flying blind here, I don't even know what you're looking at. All of the cameras in the cargo bay are offline, I've been trying to sort that out since you woke up."

Reluctantly, Chronos walked closer to the box and released the latch. Shouldering the rifle in one arm and reaching for the door on one side of the box, he opened it. Inside he found his helmet, the dampener and a data pad. Sitting the rifle aside, he reached for the data pad and felt a large wave ripple through the hull. "Another time," he whispered. Scooping up the helmet and dampener, he jogged back to the bridge. He had to finish armoring up and get ready for re-entry.

"What was in the cargo bay?" the AI asked anxiously.

"I'll bring you up to speed later," he probably wouldn't. There's something going on, and he knew Gidget had some answers. But for now, he sat at the controls to bring the ship safely into Etherium's atmosphere. "We've got more important things look into right now."


	2. Arrival

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own or claim to own Invader Zim in any way, the copyright goes to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon**

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2176  
Etherium outer atmosphere  
Planetary time: 1620 hours

Chronos braced himself against the console and the pilot's seat as the ship tore through the atmosphere at supersonic speeds. He didn't compensate for the fact that the atmosphere had an over-abundance of oxygen due to the amount of foliage on Etherium. The shielded exterior of the ship began to glow orange as the temperature of the shield continued to rise. "How fast are we coming in?"

"Mach seven at least," the female AI responded.

"We're coming in too hot, take us into a controlled descent down to 70,000 feet." The ship began to angle toward the horizon.

"Mach 5, slowing to Mach three," she responded, this time sounding relieved.

Chronos wondered why Gidget had made such an emotional AI. Gij was a strange girl, but she knew her tech, and Chronos trusted her. His train of thought was cut off as the ship resumed its sharp descent and began picking up speed again. "What's happening? We're still to fast."

"We're being brought down through siege lines for some reason," the AI had an increasing edge of concern in her voice.

"Why are the siege lines still active?" Siege lines were standard for an occupation force after First Descent teams have already cleared a path for an advance, a sort of highway for large ships to get down to city level as fast as possible without damaging the Armada. For whatever reason, these lines were still operational three years after the surface was glassed. "Give me manual control," he said, and shortly after they resumed their controlled descent. "An hour, not even an hour in and we have complications," he gave a deep sigh. "Let's just land and get this over with."

* * *

After a few hours of delicate navigation, the ship touched down on the scorched surface of Etherium. Chronos sat in the armory clearing his mind and readying his body. Equipped with a fully automatic anti-material assault rifle and a pistol sidearm, with three magazines for both, he didn't expect to find himself in a firefight, but if he did, he would be ready for one. The numbing habit of assembling, disassembling, and reassembling his pistol occupied his hands while his mind went through the possibilities he might find investigating the disappearance of his squad. The orders given to the Hades corps were to provide reconnaissance of the capitol cities of Etherium and weed out any surviving generals or persons of interest. Chronos' team had been reduced to hit men for the Tallest, while he had been ordered to stay aboard the _Massive_ and await further instruction. Why was he not to join his team? And why Etherium? What value did hunting down old men defending their home have?

He finished reassembling his firearm one last time and looked up to the six lockers across from him. Chronos wasn't one for sentiment, but even he had to admit it was all a little too suspicious. He walked to the bridge again and removed a small rectangular piece of metal from the console. He still didn't completely trust this AI, but he needed it. Slotting it into a notch in the lower torso of the suit flooded the onboard system with information as the AI's infrastructure settled in and a holographic representation of a purple female irken figure appeared on his visor. "Hello there," she said eagerly as if she were an old friend.

Biting back the urge to question her about Gij's intentions, he simply settled for returning the greeting. It would take some getting used to having a female AI, the ones Chronos had used in the past were disembodied male voices, never representations of people like this one. It bothered him thinking of it as a thing, as another piece of equipment, it was too relatable. It also bothered him that it was relatable enough to confuse it with life.

He stood up to his full height of six feet seven inches tall and started a full system check of his armor. Every aspect, every feature of the suit was tested for proper functionality. The helmet's visor toggled through every mode. The joints starting from his toes and ankles glowed a dim blue light as the bionic muscle fibers tensed and relaxed while Chronos did the same with his own muscles. He stretched and tensed every muscle in order then relaxed in tandem with the suit, finding no problems with synchronization or sluggishness. The suit was more of a second skin than armor, streamlined and just as flexible as if he weren't even wearing it. Finally, he tested the camouflaging skin. A layer made of a prototype membrane able to mimic color, pattern, and texture to the immediate surroundings. Since the suit is completely smooth with no clips or mounts, he had a pair of fatigues made with the same prototype skin as the armor to carry the essentials: ammunition, his combat knife, external communication headset, as well as a holster strapped to his right thigh. The helmet was contoured to perfectly fit his head, the jaw line matched as well as the back and sides of his skull. The top of the helmet swept back to form a streamlined ridge. The portion covering his face remains completely bare and smooth save for a small slit over the right eye an inch wide housing all visual receptors of the helmet. Even with such a limited surface area to receive images, it sill projects all of the information to a panel in front of Chronos' eyes. No other suit of this caliber exists, and thus Chronos practically lives in the armor while on duty.

Standing by the hatch, Chronos took in a deep breath and held it. His final ritual before departing. After thirty seconds he exhaled the last breath of real air he would take for the next few days and closed the air filtration system, beginning the cycle of breathing stale artificial tasting and smelling air. This is the last moment of peace and quiet he will have for a very long time.


	3. Desolation

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own or claim to own Invader Zim in any way, the copyright goes to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon**

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2176  
Etherium, The Black Desert  
Planetary time: 2100 hours

The bolts and locks keeping the outer hatch sealed disengaged and the cabin of the ship vented atmosphere to equalize pressure inside and out. With loud hisses followed by an eerie quiet, the hatch began to descend and let in a dead, dim light that silhouetted Chronos in the doorway. The ship touched down on the dark side of the planet, but the landscape sharply contrasted with the glowing orange horizon. Hotspots on burned planets become destabilized and huge land masses turn to molten metal and toxic gas, completely inhospitable for any form of life. After learning the siege lines were still operational, Chronos decided to search firebase sites for any signs of the Irken military still having a presence on Etherium. From there he had two courses of action. He would either find the military still operational planet side and find the nearest command structure, or systematically comb through locations of interest archived after the assault concluded three years ago.

Chronos stepped down from the hatch where his feet sank half an inch deep into black sand. He touched down onto the expansive dunes of a desert. "Send the cruiser into an orbit of five miles at an elevation of 10,000 feet," he said, as if he were talking to himself, and took a few steps away from the ship.

"The ship will be about two minutes out for extraction from the projected orbit," the AI informed him. The ship slowly rose off the ground as if it were weightless, until boosters ignited from the underside, quickly elevating it high above. The cruiser itself was similarly shaped to most Irken vessels, but was more aerodynamic for atmospheric maneuverability and speed. Unlike Irken ships, the cruiser was wider than it was long with two forward swept wings mounted to the lower sides of the primary engines. It had a very sinister, and deadly visage about it. The engines themselves now burned bright red before igniting and launching the ship at breakneck speed. Within seconds it was out of sight.

Almost like nothing happened, the initial quiet of stepping out resumed as Chronos took in the surroundings. Pitch black windswept dunes stretched for miles in every direction until the shape of jagged mountains and monolithic bonfires was all that he could see from where he stood. _Why? Why Etherium?_ He shook the thought away and looked North. The closest outpost would be miles out. Who knows how far he would have to go after that, only time would tell. So he began to walk. He would not falter, he would not fatigue, and he would not become physically worse for ware. But he still faces the challenge of distance.

So he walked.

* * *

The most the desert offered as anything abnormal was the occasional mound of broken, rusted metal that used to be a war machine buried in the sand. The fact that there even existed a desert of black sand succeeded in unsettling Chronos.

Hours passed and his mind was left to wander. He was getting bored. "Status of the cruiser," he said.

A stutter in his heads up display told him he roused the AI from dormancy. "Fuel level nominal, engine temp in the green. Stabilizers, weapons systems, and the stealth drive are all operating normally," she responded.

_What a pain_. Chronos sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. His mind continued its aimless course, and he thought back to the first time he visited Etherium.

It was four years ago, when Chronos was assigned to the _Massive_ on standby. He was sent to escort a group of candidates for some secret project to the _Massive._ When he got to the rendevous point, he discovered that these "candidates" were test subjects to experimentation at an irken research facility. There were twenty-three test subjects in total, only a handfull of them were conscious. The majority of them had severe deformities. There were irken with blank expressions and solid black eyes, vortians with disfigured limbs, and meekrobians reduced to puddles in stasis tanks. It was hard to look at, but he had his orders. The only one of these test subjects that could walk without assistance was a young irken boy, barely out of his smeet-hood. His skin was bone white, he had abnormally long antennae, and brilliant blue eyes. He strikingly contrasted from the others. He held himself well, he seemed disciplined, intelligent, and sharp. Chronos approached the boy, knealt down to eye-height, and asked his name.

The boy's stern expression moved toward him, and regarded Chronos with a critical eye. All the boy wore was a ragged pair of pants, no shoes, and a small blanket wraped around his body. "My name is Chronos," he finally responded.

He blinked, and was dumb-struck at his own name. "Do you know why you are at this facility?" he asked, his curiosity growing.

"I'm here to escort a group of candidates to The _Massive_ for a secret project," he said with the same critical expression on his face.

Chronos stood and gaped at the strange boy. "How... how is this..." he looked to the staff and gestured to the boy, "How is this even possible?" He stood there and beheld a child who was mimicing his existence. On that day, he never got a clear answer as to how he was capable of doing the things he did, but he didn't give up. The child fascinated him, and Chronos checked in on him several times over the next few months. He seemed to be able to look into a person's being and imitate it. That's why he held himself so well when Chronos first saw him, he was already mocking him even before they met.

_This is no time to reminisce._ He shook his head and continued his course. It was tempting to let his mind wander and pass the time.

* * *

Movement. Chronos snapped his mind to attention, shouldered his rifle as a figure bolted over the edge of a sand dune. He dug in and sprinted up the dune in pursuit. As he crested the edge he sweept the area and saw nothing. At that moment he heard something behind him. He spun around and crouched, rifle still trained.

"Give me a thermal sweep," he said. Seconds later the radar pulsed to show the thermal readings of the area.

"There are cold signatures circling at thirty feet," the AI alerted.

He froze and his eyes widened. "Shit!" Chronos knew exactly what he was dealing with. He vaulted the dune and started a dead-sprint in the opposite direction.

He dug in as hard as he could and ran. His heart was pounding, adrenaline rushing, and his hands were shaking. He focused on the horizon in front of him and increased his pace. In his frenzy he dared to look back only to see shadows racing across the sand.

"Those are Darquelings!"


	4. Darkness

A/N: You'll notice in this and the next chapter that I portray irkens with a heart and lungs. I do this to avoid having the squeedily spooch as the only major internal organ, it makes it easier to do damage assessments in combat scenes without more significant injuries in my opinion. Other than the addition of a heart and two lungs, I keep irkens internally the same. I do however change them through eyes, skin tone, antennae, teeth, etc. I think it just makes them more esthetically pleasing than everyone being the same shade of green skin and red eyes.

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**DISCLAIMER: I do not own or claim to own Invader Zim in any way, the copyright goes to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon**

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2176  
Etherium, The Black Desert  
Planetary time: 0300 hours

_Just run, run as hard as you can dammit..._ The Devil was on his heels so he ran. Darquelings: the worst thing you could ever encounter on your own, were on him. He could feel the muscles of the suit surge to life and he ran faster and harder than he ever could under his own power. _Don't hide, don't look back, just run._

"They're gaining. In exactly five seconds, you need to hit the ground as flat as possible," the AI instructed.

"Wha-"

"Just do it!" she barked with urgency in her voice.

At that instant, his body moved on its own more than he himself jumped, and he hit the ground. Less than a second later, from the edge of his vision, he saw black smoke enveloping a dark figure as it sailed over him. The most he could gather was pointed black claws, and red eyes. The figure flew until it hit the sand, and kept going until the body had fallen under the surface as if it were water, and only a black shadow remained. A shadow blacker and thicker than the sand, like a hole in reality. The shadow maintained the velocity of the figure and sped across the ground. Wasting no time, Chronos bolted up and continued his mad dash for cover. "How did you know?"

"I'll explain later," the female voice responded, "just follow my lead."

He decided to do just that.

"Keep running thirty meters to the dune ahead of you. As you reach the edge, jump over it and turn around, ready your weapon and wait for my signal."

"You can't kill these things that easy, it'll take a lot more than one man and one rifle," he implored. She remained silent. Chronos questioned what logic was running through the progam, but he still did as she instructed. He suspected the AI was guiding his movements through his PAK, as well as the armor. He landed, turned, and crouched to one knee, ready for them to take to the air once more.

The first crested the edge and took flight. "Aim for center-mass, just below the mid-section," she said, and he did. Time slowed, the cross-hair hovered just over the spot she told him. He pulled the trigger, then the rifle bucked, hard. Harder than it should have. Hard enough to unbalance him. The round connected with the cloud of smoke and it visibly shuddered. Its course skewed and it plummeted to the ground in front of Chronos. Instead of sinking below the surface like the first one, it impacted and tumbled down the slope. Chronos took a step back and squeezed off another shot. Again the rifle kicked, the muzzle blazed, and the bullet slammed into the Darqueling. "Get ready, here comes the next," the AI chimed in.

The next came from an angle to his right, not airborne but running on all fours. Chronos saw more this time, its head, long slender arms, and reverse-jointed legs. All four limbs ended in jagged claws. The Darqueling brought its arms to its sides with claws raised at a dead sprint for Chronos. Acquire target, aim, fire. One shot slammed into its head, whipping it back. Another two hit the chest full-force. The momentum of the rounds slowed the creature and its legs came out from under it, tripping it onto the ground. He didn't wait for either of them to recover, because he knew they would, and continue the chase. He turned and ran once again. The time-dialation he was experiencing waned, and Chronos felt he was running much faster now. _There's no way that was just adrenaline, Darquelings are too fast to follow with the naked eye at those speeds..._ "How much time passed between the first shot being fired, and the second Darque hitting the ground?" he asked, feeling like he was losing grip on his senses.

"Three seconds," she responded.

_How is that... _"How is that possible?!" he was frantic, there was no way he could react that fast.

"I'll answer all of your questions later, right now just focus on your safety," she said, as if she were the one giving orders now.

They kept up the hit and run tactics for several minutes, holding the creatures at bay. But they couldn't hold out for much longer. As they reached the top of a small hill, the rusted hull of a starship came into view, its nose stretched more than one-hundred feet into the air. Chronos leapt from the top of the hill to descend faster, and an idea sprung into his mind. "How far is that ship?"

"About two-hundred meters," she said in a flat tone, "what are you going to-" she went silent. Moments later she appeared on the visor with her arms crossed, "you're not serious, are you?" The image of the tall woman, dressed in a long-tailed Irken uniform with steel-capped boots, and a tattoo of the Irken logo over her left eye seemed pointless to Chronos. She seemed to be staring him down from inside his helmet with a disappointed expression, even though she obviously wasn't looking at him, she was a program after all.

"I am," he had a smile, even though he was running for his life from monsters. "Put everything we've got into our speed."

She closed her eyes and sighed, "Done."

He was running faster than he had ever gone before. By the end of this encounter, his muscles would be screaming, but he didn't care. He would live. "How far now?"

"One-hundred-seventy-five meters."

"Keep me posted," he said, nearly out of breath. He reached the limit of how long his PAK could maintain a constant sprint without exhausting him. It was all up to his own body to keep his lungs pumping hard enough.

"One-hundred-fifty meters."

His lungs were burning, but he couldn't stop. Behind him he could hear the constant beat of feet peddling after him. The Darqulings had to run to keep pace with him at this point. _C'mon, this isn't something new, keep running. Push further._ He started to slow, he could feel it, which meant his time was running out.

"One-hundred meters."

His entire body was burning in agony, he was pushing his muscles past their physical limit. _Come on! You're already half way, PUSH! _He began speeding up, and time began to slow again. He could hear his heart beating, the sand shifting with each step, even the silent pursuers behind him.

"Twenty-five meters."

He looked up from the sand to the titanic vessel buried in the desert, it was massive. He was close, and he was fast, very fast. He put his arms in front of him, ducked his head down, and smashed straight through the hull. During the impact, he turned, rifle in hand, and let his back hit the opposing wall inside the hull. He squeezed off several shots from the hip. It was only at this moment that he took a headcount of how many Darquelings were running after him. There were five runners, and many more shadows. He fired several more shots to knee-cap the runners, knowing the ones still submerged would circle for a few more seconds before surfacing. "Come on! Come and get me!" he yelled.

Chronos started climbing through the different compartments of the derelict warship as fast as he could. After scaling to a vertical hallway, he took the opportunity to eject the spent magazine and load a new one. He slung the rifle and climbed with both hands. He stopped at the top of a shaft and waited for the shadows sure to be following. Several seconds passed, and he balanced with a foot on both edges of the drop off.

"Can you find an armory onboard this ship?" he asked, seconds before a Darqueling silently skulked into the corridor bellow him. He fired three shots into the black clowd of smoke before he heard the creature smack into the bulkhead underneath it. He still wasn't used to how much more his rifle was kicking than it normally does, but he couldn't really complain. Satisfied that it wouldn't move for the time being, he kept climbing.

"Yes, you're almost there. You should climb two more corridors then move to the deck below this one," the AI navigated an unknown vessel better than Chronos had expected.

Sure enough, the armory was just where she said. There, he found what he was looking for, thermal charges. "Their payload should be enough to set off the rest of the ordnance onboard," he picked up a remote detonator, "patch the detonator to the charges," he ordered. After priming several charges, he finished the climb to the tip of the vessel. He found an emergency hatch and tried forcing it open, but it wouldn't budge. He wedged himself between the wall and the hatch, and started kicking at the door with both feet. He kept at it but it refused to move. _Oh come on. _He gave it one last effort, and put all of his might into it. This time, the rusty hatch squealed and broke off the hinges. "Bring the ship in, now."

"One minute fifty seconds until evac," she affirmed.

"Alright you bastards, come and get me," Chronos growled under his breath. He pulled the pin on the detonator holding the trigger-guard in place, and held his finger just over the trigger. "Bring the ship in faster, we're not going to make it at this rate." He could hear the ticking of Darquelings scaling the inside of the ship. "Put everything we have in the leg muscles," he whispered. This was it, he was either going to miss his timing and detonate the charges too soon, wait too long and get swarmed by creatures of shadow, or jump, miss the evac, and tumble to his doom. The now familiar time dialation kicked in again, and the flow of time seamed to slow to a crawl. He squatted down, pushed with all his might, every fiber of his being, and jumped as high as he could. He made it thirty feet above the ship, and began the freefall to the bottom. When he crested his jump, he blew the charges. The blast cascaded through every explosive the ship held, shredding it like paper, and pushed him away like a leaf in the wind. The detonation lit the desert like a small sun. Debris and fire scattered in every direction, and below him, Chronos could see several Darquelings waiting for him to land. He closed his eyes and blocked everything out.

In moments, he would land and be smashed to pieces by gravity. If he didn't, the Darquelings were sure to rip him to bloody ribbons. Lucky for him, he had a guardian angel. The cruiser deccelerated and came to match his freefall, with the hatch open. He angled toward the hatch and extended his hand. Against all odds, he grabbed hold onto the doorway, and pulled himself aboard.

"Close the hatch and get us the hell out of here, now!" The ship began to level out, and the hatch started closing. As Chronos got his feet under him, an explosion ripped through the hull, and he spilled back out the open hatch. He clamored for anything to grab onto, and found the wing. One of the cruiser's engines detonated and the ship destabilized, sending it into a death-spiral.

"Hold on Chronos!" he heard the AI scream in the back of his mind, but he was too frantic and lost his grip. The world started spinning, the ground, the sky, the burning wreck he jumped from, the sky again, then the impact. His vision blacked out, his mind went blank, and everything went numb.

His mind swam in an ocean of meaningless thoughts, ideals, and memories. He found himself remembering the promise he made years ago. His eyes opened, and he saw the sky again, his visor was cracked, he couldn't feel anything, his vision blurred, and he heard gunfire. "I have to find him..." his mind started waning again, and he started blacking out completely, "...find the kid..."

He couldn't hear the female voice screaming in his head, he couldn't see the shadows on the ground inching closer, he couldn't taste the blood in his mouth, and he couldn't feel his body getting cold.


	5. Apathy

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own or claim to own Invader Zim in any way, the copyright goes to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon**

* * *

Date: Unknown  
Location: Unknown  
Planetary time: Unknown

An ocean of consciousness. A desert of thought. An empty realm of the mind. There was nothing to cling to, no memory was prominent enough to spark awareness. There was no individual in this place, it was just existence. Like in a dream, the scale of one's self is vague, and unreal. Time sometimes stood still, and it sometimes flows like a river. Nothing was really certain, in this place.

Eventually, after time began to flow consistently in one direction, the cloud of counsciousness began to solidify. Senses regained their purpose, giving perception. The being that once was, is again whole.

* * *

Silence, dimmed lights, muted sensations.

The hands of time ticked on as they should. A heartbeat, lungs pumping oxygen, and nervous impulses guiding automated functions.

Erol slowly opened his eyes and looked to the ceiling above him. _It's familiar..._ He released a shallow breath and closed his eyes again. _So I'm still here._ He closed his hand around the sheets he laid on, they were soft, and cold. He was laying in his bunk, like he always did after his punishment. _How long has it been this time? _Erol tried sitting up, but his lower torso spiked with pain. He grunted and reached for the pained spot just below the ribs, on his right side. When his hand reached his ribs, he found his lower abdomen was wraped in bandages, as was his hand. Looking at his palm, he overlooked the rest of his body to find bandages on his torso, neck, as well as both hands and feet. "Pointless," he said to himself, barely more than a whisper. Now scowling in annoyance, Erol tore the bandages from his limbs to uncover flawless white skin, without a single wound to be found. He sat up with his feet on the cold floor, closed his eyes in rememberance, and thought back.

He could see guards, armed with spears. Many others were crowded around in a circle, with pained expressions on their faces. He remembered sitting in the throne, but he couldn't stand. He focused harder to recall why. His hands were bound to the chair. No, not bound, bolted, his hands were nailed to the chair. Blood ran down boths sides of the throne to pool onto the floor. Erol started grimacing, but tried to remember what happened next. Seconds later, something fast and sharp was hurling through the air. He clenched his eyes shut, hard, and came back to the bunk. _A bleed out this time. _Erol cupped a hand over his neck and massaged his throat.

After a few minutes of gathering his barings, he stood and stretched. Erol only stood at a height of five feet two inches, which is still pretty impressive for an irken only fourteen years of age. He was in the servants' bunk room, in the furthermost corner from the entrance. There were no others in the room with him. It consisted of three rows of beds, with ten beds in each row. Along each wall lined wardrobes and dressers made of rounded, maroon-shaded metal. He walked to the one marked with his name, and opened it to show fancy uniforms, and decorative oriental outfits. Erol frowned and reached for the one covered in protective plastic with a note: _"I'd like you to wear this one today. ~M"_ He quickly snatched the note away, crumpled it up, and tossed it aside.

After removing the plastic cover, he overlooked the outfit. It was significantly too long for him, which is where one of Erol's skills came in handy. At the command of a simple thought, he willed his body to change. The bones in his arms and legs began to stress, and lengthen. His ribcage expanded, muscles grew larger, and more defined. The process was rather painful, but nothing he wasn't used to by now. The end product had him standing at almost seven feet tall. Nearly two feet taller, he was slim, physically fit, and his bone structure was striking. His antennae stretched down nearly past his lower back, and his eyes changed to a pearlescent red and blue. When looking into his eyes dead on, one sees luminescent, radiant blue eyes. From an angle, one will see the same blue, edged with red around his iris. When viewed from the side, one sees him in profile with blood-red eyes that give him an air of valor.

Erol could mold himself into the perfect being. He could change himself into any person he could picture, he could even change his anatomy so drastically to change his gender. But only he knew that, otherwise, his current living condition could be much different. Much worse than it is now. For the time being, he looked over the outfit selected for him. He recalled images of the Tallest, and saw many similarities in the outfit. It was very long, reaching to the floor like a monk's robe, with no sleeves and a collar that wraps around the neck, skin-tight. It was completely crimson except for black designs that started on the spine, then stretched down with black lines until the waist, where they contoured to the front and continued to the bottom rim of the robe-like skirt. Along with it, was a pair of black pants, steel-capped boots, and long fingerless gloves that extend to the elbow. _It must be some special occasion._

* * *

Hours later, Erol settled into his new body and dressed into the ultra-modern outfit chosen for him. The rest of the servants started to file into the bunk house, which meant it must be getting late, and this special occasion he predicted must be at a different location. The older hands looked at Erol with pity, the newer recruits always averted their eyes and tried sneaking a peak at him when they thought he wasn't looking. They were either afraid of him, or in awe, at least for the time being. After nearly all of the servants were accounted for, one of the soldiers of the compound approached him. "She's waiting for you in the main hall," the stout, armored irken informed him. Without speaking a word, he stood, and left the room. He could feel he was being watched, he usually was.

He reached the main hall, a huge room that doubled as the throne room. In the center was the throne itself, a high backed chair with extravagent design and decoration. Gilded banners hang from the ceiling on both sides of the throne, with the emblem of the Irken Military. Near the chair, several high-class nobles stood and conversed. Sitting in the throne, was an irken woman. She was tall, she looked very proud, self-superior, and very beautiful. The woman was wearing clothes similar to the ones Erol was wearing, only purple. She was sitting with her legs crossed, her hands clasped together in front of her mouth, with her elbows resting on the chair. She was watching Erol walk toward her with a deadly gaze, she practically bled superiority. Erol took his side by the throne and clasped his hands behind him.

Two women from the group of nobles approached them, "Tell us Mara, where did you find him?" one of the girls asked, all smiles with a finger touching her lip. They were both very well dressed, and giddy as can be. Erol gave no visual response, but to close his eyes.

Mara smiled, a sly smile, hidden by her hands, "Now that would be telling," she looked to the edge of her vision toward Erol, "it _is_ a secret after all." She was incredibly sharp. In the irken underworld, she was respected and feared. More often than not it was the ladder. Mara stood from her throne and extended an arm toward Erol, "Shall we go?"

Erol wanted nothing more than to refuse. To deny Mara. He wanted to rip her throat out himself. But he couldn't, she had a linch pin keeping him at bay. He knew that if he were to step out of line, she would kill him. She would not hesitate to break her precious toy, again. Even if he did nothing to displease her, she would still kill him. She would kill him to keep him in line, she would kill him to prove a point. She would even kill him out of bordum. But he wouldn't stay dead. Depending on how bad his condition, he would recover in a days time, sometimes in just hours.

Erol was immortal, and he was Mara's precious toy. A toy she loved to show off.

So he took her hand, and she laced her arm through his.


	6. Allies

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own or claim to own Invader Zim in any way, the copyright goes to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon**

* * *

2176  
Etherium, The Black Desert  
Planetary time: Unknown

Chronos was unconscious, but he wasn't dreaming. No, it was much more than dreaming. He was aware, but not in the physical world. He drifted through his own dreams not like a part of the dream as per usual, but rather riding along a roller-coaster without being secured. What he saw, he thought to be more real than fake. It was an interactive nightmare.

At the moment, he was walking aboard the _Massive_, looking for Gij. He had to ask her something, but couldn't remember what. Something about a computer program, or a virus maybe. A program? No, that didn't seem right... Not a program, but a system, no that's not right either. His pace slowed and he thought about it harder, he knew it was very important, so why would he forget so easily? It took him more than half an hour to walk to Gidget's workshop near the stern of the _Massive_. Along his entire trek there, he could never put his finger on what was so important. He walked toward the door, which opened automatically at his approach. "Gidget! Are you home?" Chronos called out to her.

"I'm in the lab," came her response, "What do you need?"

Chronos stopped and leaned his weight against a nearby workbench. He was practically sitting on the table meant for the significantly shorter irken. "I'm not sure..." he finally responded. He rested his chin on his hand propped up by the other hand, and pondered. _How could I have possibly forgotten?_

The sounds of running equipment from further in the space paused, "What do you mean 'you're not sure'? You're never unsure about _anything_!" Gidget yelled through the curtains of the lab.

Chronos knew she was right, which worried him. "I don't know, I had something really important to ask you about, but now I just can't remember." He closed his eyes and thought harder, then recalled finding something on a ship, "I think it was something you left for me," he said, his eyes still closed.

He could hear the ruffling of the curtains and light footsteps approaching, "You mean %&*?"

His eyes shot open, her last word wasn't even coherent in any language he'd ever heard. "What did yo-" Chronos froze as he looked down to the irken standing next to him. She was only four foot nine, with a long white lab coat. Her antennae were slightly longer than average, and ended in a curled loop. But she had no facial features. No eyes, no mouth, not even bone structure. Her entire face was smooth and rounded, covered in light green skin. Chronos' eyes widened, and he slowly backed away.

She slowly followed and kept his pace, "Wait, weren't you going to Etherium?" she said, stopping and tilting her head to the side.

_Etherium!_ Chronos froze again, and his gaze slowly drifted as he began to remember. "Etherium..." he whispered. Almost immediately, lights in the workshop began to flicker and burst. As the light faded to darkness, Chronos saw the curtains behind the faceless Gidget part, and out stepped a black figure with blood red eyes. Without thinking, He moved Gidget out of the way, and rushed between her and the figure. His hand was on her arm when suddenly it grew stiff. He dared to look away from the creature in front of him, to check on her. He let go and backed away once again. Her skin had turned to green-tinted stone, and stood motionless. _This... this conversation never actually happened... I never asked Gidget anything..._ His attention was once again drawn to the lab where the now imposing figure stood inches from him. It was taller than he was, and stared straight into his eyes.

"?#(7&*$!" he heard another voice spouting jibberish from the door behind him. But he was locked in place by fear. The being inched closer to look at him face-to-face. He could clearly see the facial features now: it had a long, angular face, but where its mouth should be was flat skin. As he watched, the skin where a mouth should be began to stretch, and tear. Blood began pouring down its chin as the skin parted to expose extremely sharp, jagged teeth. The jaw tugged, ripping the rest of the skin free and the creature screamed an otherwordly shout in his face, propelling him backwards with an unseen concussive force, and hurled him into the door. "C#%O&($!" the voice repeated, this time he could tell it was a woman.

The creature began approaching Chronos, who was now on his back against the door. It dragged its right hand against the wall, leaving huge gashes in the metal with sparks in its wake. The door opened, letting Chronos' head hit the ground, and knocking him to his senses. He looked down the hallway and scrambled to his feet. He began sprinting as fast as he could in front of him. He put his hands on his head and tried to rationalize. _This can't be happening, a rift can't open on a ship. _"This isn't happening!" he stopped in place and yelled, not out of fear, but anger.

Chronos clenched his eyes shut and bent his head down, hands still on his head. "CHRONOS!" the female voice yelled, this time he could understand. This time he recognized the voice. He opened his eyes, but he wasn't where he stopped, he was on the bridge. There was no one else on the bridge, not a single Elite on guard, no intelligence officers at their post, there was no one. He jogged to the circular platform where the Tallest stood. It was about twenty feet wide, and the main displays all surrounded it parabolically, so no matter where you stood on the platform, you could see them clearly. Beyond them was the huge wall of glass, the window in front of the _Massive_ where the Tallest could see open space. In the glass Chronos could see his reflection. The tall irken had pale green skin, long slender arms, and a long black irken military uniform. He was one of the few irken alive with black eyes. His pupils were white, surrounded by black. As he looked at his reflection, two thin green arms snaked around his torso, and squeezed him in a hug. "You have to come back..." the same female voice said from behind him.

"It's you..." he whispered, barely audible. He stood there a few moments before looking back up to the reflection. The arms were gone, and another figure was rising up above him. He spun around to see the new arrival. What he saw confounded him. It was one of the Tallest, Tallest Purple to be exact.

He was exactly the same as he once was, and now looked on Chronos with his usual expression of bordum. "It's been a long time, Chronos. How fares the hunt?" Purple asked, as if everything was in order.

They were still alone on the bridge, but Purple seemed perfectly normal. "You... you can't be real," he answered his Tallest.

Purple smiled and waved a finger in the air, "Tisk tisk, now is that any way to address your superior?" He looked the same, but he was completely different.

"You _aren't _real, Tallest Purple never spoke like that," Chronos said, and took a few steps back. His expression was no longer one of disbelief, it was one of anger, bordering on rage.

"Is that so? Well it seems he does now. That is, _I_ do now," Purple said as he began to hover closer to Chronos.

Chronos stopped and stood his ground. "You, are not, _real,_" he repeated, "Tallest Purple is dead!" he screamed.

Purple stopped his approach, and his smile grew. His teeth were jagged, and his eyes began to glow purple. "Oh, but I am so much more than that now," he said with darkness in his voice, something sinister, something powerful lurking in his words. As he spoke, his form began to change. His fingers grew wider and more pointed. His armor started to form bone-like structures and ridges, along his spine came the same structures in the form of vertebrae around the stalk between his upper and lower body. His antennae grew thicker and curled forward to form solid devil horns that swept forward like a bull's horns. In a movement too quick for Chronos to react, Nightmare Purple wrapped a guantleted hand around his mouth and picked him up. He could feel more and more pressure on his skull as he squeezed. "I'm so much better than I ever could have been before."

Chronos brought his hands up to try and wrench himself free. He saw his hands covered in matte-black metal and he remembered he was wearing his armor. Now looking through his visor again, he ripped free of Nightmare Purple's grasp and fell to the ground. He landed on his feet and stared back at his former tallest. "You may think yourself powerful, but not in my world," Chronos said, scowling under his helmet. "In my world, you are nothing." He was now fully aware of what was happening, and willed the ghost away.

Purple began to dissolve and turn to dust starting at his feet. "That may be so," he said with the same smile and dark voice, "but what will you do should I find you?"

Chronos ignored him, and willed the dream to shatter. Everything blasted away into dust, and Chonos was left floating in an abyss of white light. He basked in the light and felt the warmth of it. But it didn't last, because everything faded to darkness as he began to sleep in his fake nightmare, only to wake in the real one.

* * *

Chronos shot up to a sitting position to find himself in a small, dimly lit room._ Not safe,_ he thought to himself. His armor was powered down, but the cameras in the eye-slit of the helmet still projected the environment, the HUD was offline. He quickly spotted a doorway out of the room, and rushed it. He put his shoulder up and broke straight through the wooden door. After regaining his balance, he took off down the stone hallway looking for any way out. _Not safe, get out NOW._

His instincts were screaming at him. He'd been captured, he wasn't restrained, he did not see his captors. The burned in military instinct told him to run, if he ran into resistance, avoid. If he couldn't do that, go through them. If he is re-captured, try to re-escape, repeat step one. If he is captured and escape is not an option, hold out. Give them nothing, shut them down at every stop. If he cannot hold out, attempt to self-terminate. He didn't think about what was going to happen should he be re-captured, his only thought was rounding corners fast enough to get free.

Chronos was unarmed, no doubt relieved of his weapons and supplies. Corridor after corrider spiraled, converged, stopped dead, and forked at every corner. He couldn't make heads or tails of the layout. The walls were crudely carved out of stone, any doors were framed with, and made of wood. The maze he found himself in must be ancient. There were no electrical sources of light, it was all either candle or torch light. He found himself running down a corridor that ended with just a door. So he kept pace and kicked it in. On the other side, was three armed figures covered from head to toe in cloth. All three were centered around a small table now with chairs on the ground behind them from the surprise. He wasted no time, and bolted through another door to his left, away from the three men. As he ran, he heard shouting and footsteps follow. He didn't even attempt to listen to what they were saying, just escape. Escape at all cost.

After rounding another corner, Chronos nearly ran straight into a new fighter. He simply shifted his weight to one foot, and drove into him with his knee at an angle, and spun around leaving the man unconscious on the sandy floor. That cost him valuable time, and as he resumed in the original direction, he ran into another squad of three men. Immediately he spun and ran in the opposite direction. This time, taking a different turn at the intersection with the incapacitated man. Minutes passed and still he found no exit. His mind began a calm kind of panic, knowing that eventually he would either find an exit, slip up and get captured, or be gunned down on the spot. Chronos found solace in absolutes to keep his thoughts in order. But time was running out.

He ran down a long hall with a single door and an intersection on both ends of the hallway. He stopped in his tracks as he heard rushed footsteps ahead of him, and turned around again. The door he passed was now open with a man standing in the doorway with his weapon trained on Chronos. With his right hand, he grabbed the barrel and pulled it up, with his left he reached for the stock of the weapon. Using all of his upper-body strength, he bashed the butt of the gun into the man's face. He used the momentum to spin him around and wrap his left arm around his neck from behind. With his free hand, he reached for the man's thigh expecting to find a sidearm. He did. He pulled at it hard enough to rip the strap holding it in the holster and brought it up to bare. Setting his sights for the corner where he heard men approaching, he walked backwards, keeping his living-shield off balance. He kicked the man's legs forward so his weight would all fall onto Chronos' arm, and cut off his breathing. The handgun he held was huge, he could identify it as a high powered, rail-accelerated revolver. It had enough umph to put a hole through almost any infantry armor. Why a random militant was carrying such fire power, was nothing he cared about.

Two men came into sight in front of him, and he started pulling back again, hauling the dead-weight of a suffocating prisoner along with him. The soldiers took up positions at the end of the hallway, and kept Chronos sighted in. He could now hear footsteps coming from behind him, so he had to change his strategy. He planted his back against the wall and pulled his prisoner closer. He shoved the barrel of the massive handgun into the man's temple and held his possiton. To both his left and right, there were a total of five soldiers with weapons ready. There was a man from each direction yelling for him to do something, but Chronos was overtaken by instinct and blocked them out.

All five men started slowly approaching his flanks. _Just a few more steps, _he thought, counting the seconds in preparation. When the men to his left crossed the threshold he decided on, he moved the barrel of the handgun just away from the man's head and fired. The extremely high-powered projectile smashed into the ceiling above the two men to his left. His prisoner panicked and flinched away, and Chronos spun him, and kicked him in the back flat-footed and sent him careening into the men. He kept spinning and took up aim at the three to his right. He sprinted with the pistol still trained and fired two shots, one grazed the leg of the man on the right, dropping him to a knee, the other slammed into the man on the left, to the bottom left of his abdomen. He leapt into the air and brought his knee into the chest of the third man, taking him to the ground where he now sat on his chest with his knee still buried in his chest. Chronos put the muzzle of the handgun right between his eyes and stopped moving.

Neither of them moved so much as a muscle and stared each other down. By the time Chronos had landed on the man, his prisoner he had kicked into the other men had just finished hitting the ground. _So I can still dialate time, interesting,_ he marveled for a moment, but came back to the gun in his hand, and the soldiers now righting themselves and aiming for Chronos. "I assume you're in charge here?" Chronos spoke through his helmet, muffling him without the exterior speakers to amplify his voice.

"Yes, I am," the man responded with pained breathing.

"Good, good," Chronos muttered. He stared into the eyes of the man below him for a moment longer, then stood and released him. He opened the cylinder of the revolver and emptied the spent ammunition, as well as the unfired rounds onto the ground. He dropped the pistol to the ground next to them. "Now if you don't mind, explain to me why the hell irken soldiers are dressed like insurgents."

* * *

"Alright, so let me get this straight," Chronos said as he sat across from the irken he predicted to be in charge. They spent the past half hour getting Chronos up to speed on why he was there. "You recieved a distress signal, and went to investigate the desert," he paused, and the now unveiled irken nodded, "and when you spotted me running, you also saw the Darquelings chasing after me," another pause, and another nod, "and a few minutes later one of those rusted hulks detonated, then you saw me _free falling_ from the top of it?" he finished, and the man nodded once more. Chronos sat there for several more minutes in contemplation. He remembered running from Darquelings, he remembered engaging them, and he rememberd bashing a hole through the side of the derelict vessel. Everything after that was a blank. "Dammit! I'm still missing something!" he said as he sat back in the chair with his hands on his face.

It was then that he once again noticed the massive crack in the glass of his visor, going straight down the left hemishpere and spider-webbing in every direction in front of his eye. He must have hit something _very_ hard to crack a visor like this. After a moment, the irken across from him cut in, "So you don't remember landing on a different ship, when the same ship was hit by debris, and then falling straight to the ground bellow, am I right?" Chronos simply nodded, he didn't remember that happening, but it seemed plausible. But how did he survive? For that matter, how was he able to try to _escape_ his assumed 'captors' while in the process holding them off single-handedly? From what he was told, he fell over fourty feet, straight down. That should have been enough to break nearly every bone in his body.

"Just how long have I been here?" he asked.

"Three days, give or take," the irken responded.

Chronos stood, "Three days?!" he exclaimed. He started pacing circles in the small room, the two of them were the only ones there. Outside two others stood guard at the door. _Three days..._

The irken sitting in front of him began to say something, but seemed to be fumbling with his words. Finally, he spoke, "Sir, if you don't mind me asking, what exactly is a member of First Descent like yourself doing on a rock like this?" he asked, clearly nervous. Chronos was used to people getting nervous around him, members of First Descent teams were like gods to shorter irkens. They were only selected from the best of the best at what they do, and were always among either the Elites, or the Invaders. Second only to the Tallest.

Chronos stopped, and pondered. "That's classified," he replied. He turned to the man in the chair and gestured to him with his hand, "For that matter, what are you doing here?" he asked, regarding the irken and his men. Chronos slowly started walking toward him, "I've been trying to figure that out since I got here," he said, "so you'd better start talking."

The man in the seat was looking more and more uncomfortable by the minute. He didn't speak

Chronos stopped walking, and stood with his arms locked behind his back. "Soldier!" the irken quickly rose to attention, "State your purpose."

"To serve the Empire and my Tallest!" he barked

"I am one of your Tallest's chosen warriors, recognize," Chronos said, testing the irken's loyalty.

"Affirmative! My service is to you my Taller!" he responded, abiding by the programming in his PAK.

"Then tell me why you are on Etherium," Chronos challeneged. This was his test, his experiment to test his theory.

The irken stood at attention and said nothing. Both made no movement for a full minute. Chronos smiled under his helmet, and confirmed his theory. Normally, a response like the one the man before him gave was unheard of, non-existent. His PAK shouldn't allow him to refuse a command from the Tallest's second. "At ease."

The man stood there for a moment, bewildered. "S-...sir?" he said, his voice full of fear and confusion. No doubt he expected to be punished.

Chronos simply turned and started leaving the room, "I'm going to find a room to rest and recuperate, if you need me, I'll be there."

The man continued standing for a moment, flabergasted at what just transpired. He let his weight fall back into the chair, "What was all that about?" he whispered to himself.

* * *

After wandering through the complex for a while, Chronos eventually found the room with his equipment and took a seat on a large block of stone. He still had no idea where exactly he was, the labyrinth was crude, and seemed dug out of very dense black stone. It gave him the feeling he was sitting in a tomb.

Chronos spent nearly an hour trying to re-power the suit. He had removed most of the armor from his upper body, and went to work on jumping the power grid. Not being an expert tinkerer, he ended up shocking himself several times before succeeding. Even then, all he could do was restart the software, the artificial muscles and joints were still dead weight, so he removed the inner-skin of the torso armor and put it on, like a high-teck sleeveless shirt. He put his helmet on and began diagnostics. The visor temporarily went dark, followed by visuals returning with the overlaying HUD. The armor's system was back up and running again.

As he started guiding the system by thought, he could feel a familiar presence in his mind. A voice began to come not through the communicator, but in his head, as if he were thinking to himself. He stopped what he was doing to try to understand the voice. It was the same female voice that had gotten through to him in his nightmare. But at the same time, it was someone different. _"You came back"_ she said in a calm voice.

_Who is that? _Chronos thought to himself.

_"I'm a part of you now,"_ the voice said.

_Wait, she can- _"You can hear my thoughts?"

_"Of course I can,"_ she responded matter-of-factly.

"Where did you come from? How are you in my head?" his mind was spinning with possibilities. The real question he wanted to ask, why was she so familiar?

She remained quiet for a moment, then began to speak. _"I'm the artificial intelligence that Gidjet made for you, and you alone." _Chronos sat in silence. He knew her words to be true, but he couldn't remember how the AI came into his possession. It was like something was hiding his own memories from him. She continued, _"I'm not sure what exactly happened, but three days ago, when you were running from the Darquelings, you had a traumatic event that jarred my system." _Now that she mentioned it, he did remember looking up to the sky, he couldn't move his body, and he thought it was the end. He mulled this over for a few minutes, but she never went on to answer his third question, which she had more than likely heard.

Chronos picked up the torso armor on the floor in front of him, and opened the slot where the metal chip was contained. He pulled out the chip and stared at what he held in his hand. The chip had been burned, and a hole was blasted through the center. He turned the armor upside down and out spilled small bits of metal and circuitry from the slot. _A part of me now... _"You weren't kidding," he remarked.

_"It seems so," _she said, as if to confirm the truth for herself.

Chronos sat there for a few minutes looking at the burned-out AI casing in his hand. "What is your name?" he asked, and closed his four fingered hand around the rectangle of metal.

The familiar image of the tall irken woman appeared on his display with her long irken uniform and steel toe boots. The tattoo of the irken logo centered over her eye, with the central dot on the eyelid itself. Chronos looked at the figure on his display, and realized he was looking at a representation of part of his mind. His world would be forever changed, but not in a bad way. "My name is Ida," she answered happily. This time she spoke through both his helmet, and his mind.

Chronos smiled, "Ida huh? I like that name." He wasn't talking to a program anymore, he was speaking to a being that lived in his mind. "My name is Chronos."

Ida smiled and crossed her arms, now with a mischevious look on her face, "Alright, now tell me your real name. The one you were born with," she said with a sly tone.

His smile grew, _This is definitely going to be interesting, _"My name is Krow."


	7. Soiree

A/N: For the uninformed, a soiree is a private party held at night usually attended by high-class citizens. Also, it's pronounced like swa-ray, with no breaks.

See you on the other side~

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own or claim to own Invader Zim in any way, the copyright goes to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon**

* * *

Date: Unknown  
Location: Planet Unknown, Irken Underground estate  
Planetary time: 2100 hours

Erol sat next to Mara in the back seat of her personal transport, accompanied by five of her assosiates from the compound. Erol always looked at those who attached themselves to Mara with disgust. Not that he felt defensive of her, he just hated the kind of scum that jump on the band wagon to try and wrench power wherever they could, from whoever they could.

The hovering vehicle began to shudder as they touched down, and everyone filed out. Everyone except for Erol and Mara. As he waited for her word, she placed a hand on his thigh. He didn't react, but waited. From the corner of his vision, he saw that she was staring into his eyes. He met her gaze of scrutiny with a deadpan expression. Several moments passed in complete silence. Erol's unflinching composure withstood the relentless assault of Mara's challenge. She was determined to break his will. "You're going to do it this time," she said, laying down the law. He did not respond, but his expression did intensify.

"No," he coldly stated. Moments later he could feel invisible pressure pinching down on his skull.

Mara started getting more angry, "You _will_ do it_._"

"I will not." The pressure increased, like a vice cranking down. His vision began to blur, and his mind started straining in protest.

"You have no choi-"

Erol cut her off, "I do not fear you," he said with venom in his voice. He started pushing back with his mind, _I do not fear _you_ either, _he thought, and ripped the vice-like force away from his mind. Mara looked at him with a glimmer of surprise in her deep purple eyes but hid it in an instant. She began to smile.

"One day," she began as she looked away, "I'll break that spirit of yours." Mara opened the door and stepped out, Erol did the same on his side.

He walked around the back and met her, she took his arm and looped her's through his elbow. They began to walk to the entrance of the monolithic estate, arm in arm. "And one day," Erol said as he looked down into Mara's eyes, "I will take your life," he promised.

She in turn looked into his eyes with devilish glee, "We shall see, my immortal servant," she gave a smile that highlighted the evil in her being, "we shall see."

* * *

Erol and Mara stepped through the door to the large estate, to find themselves standing at the upper edge of a grand amphitheater. On center stage, displays of strength, skill and agility were being put to the test. Acrobats swung from cloth tied above, dancers twirled flaming ropes and batons, strong-men dangled by chains hooked in their backs while holding weights out-stretched in their hands. It was a dark carnival, a hellish display of the exotic and bizarre.

It was The Circus of Taboo.

Everyone in attendance had some sort of disguise, be it a mask, a holographic disguise, or an elaborate costume with makeup and prosthetics. As they were entering, Mara had activated a holographic disguise that made her more pale with bright blue eyes and gave her exotic tattoos across most of her exposed skin. She nudged Erol and suggested he did the same. So he willed his skin pigmentation to change, and along his right arm there appeared red and blue designs of angels and demons that formed into a full sleeve tattoo of his entire arm, with three closed angel wings on the shoulder, and chains wrapped around his wrist. From under his collar, the design stretched from the shoulder and continued up his neck, then spider-webbed with stitching and serrations around the neck, as if his head had been removed.

"You really have a flair for the dramatic," Mara said as she watched the design spread like a cancer up his arm.

He didn't respond to her, but Erol inwardly smiled at what she said. He may detest Mara, but he did have an appreciation for his own art. Erol was always a master at manipulating his skin, but his unique ink wasn't the feature that caught most people's eye. It was the fact that he didn't have a PAK. Forget the fancy trick with his eyes, forget his height change, and forget his new ink. Erol was probably the only irken these people would ever see that didn't have a PAK. Some refused to believe he was truly irken. It was absolutely unheard of for an irken to live more than ten minutes without a PAK, and yet here he was, standing for hours, without a PAK, and not dead.

As they watched the incredible feats of agility and stamina, they wandered away from the amphitheater through the rest of the estate, and eventually to a similar chamber which stood testament as a gladiatorial arena. In the center stood two combatants, both bare-chested irken warriors. One was armed with an axe, the other with a sword. In Irken society, it was very strange to see combatants armed with anything less than cutting-edge weaponry. But of course, they were soldiers, not slaves fighting in a spectacle for the high-society types. Erol tipped his head down, and closed his eyes. He was about to be tested, and his very being would be challenged.

When he opened his eyes again, Mara was looking at him, waiting for him. He followed her to a large room with a long table, with several people gathered around it. They were talking amongst themselves until the two entered, then all eyes were on them as they took their place at the table. An older irken sat in a large high-backed chair, with his elbows resting on the table, he looked up and addressed the two of them as they entered. "Mara, so you still chose to show your face after being sent home with your tail between your legs," he said as a fact, rather than a question. He did not directly address Erol, but he caught the older man avert his eyes away from him.

Erol knew Mara must have an expression of rage as she responded, "You know why I'm here, _Deacon_." He could sense the hate and anger emanating from her, but he couldn't see her face from where he stood. He had his back against the wall, directly behind Mara along with several others all doing the same. Everyone standing at the table had their champion.

Mara, and others in positions like her, all had a shadow. A crown jewel so to speak. Someone who does their bidding unflinchingly, someone who they like to show off. Someone they send to hell and back to test their mettle.

Erol was Mara's crown jewel, and the only one of his kind.

Their masters were all members of the Irken Underground. Though the name may imply illegal activities, in fact, the underground was the puppeteer pulling the black strings of the Empire. The ones on top of the food chain had personal fighting forces, and a champion. They gather at arenas like this one, the masters and their ultimate weapons.

Erol closed his eyes again, and revealed nothing. It was his only defense, to turn to stone. To show no emotion. He tried not to remember what he had done, or what he was forced to do. He was so young, so unprepared for the world. But he was never able to live a real life, he never had the chance. He was practically born into servitude. Because of his ability to mold his body, no one actually knew his real age, but his physical ability was vastly superior to any normal irken. That is why he is Mara's champion. That is why they were here. To fight. He could sense the trepidation of the people standing next to him, and he could feel the fire burning in their hearts. Some were ready to fight, some were ready to kill, but none of them were ready to die.

"If you want to make a fool of yourself, be my guest," Deacon waved her off and continued, "All of you know the rules, so proceed as you see fit." After he finished speaking, the room became quiet. No one moved, and no one spoke for several moments. From his position, Erol could see everyone standing at the table was eyeing their competition, checking out the champions who stood at attention, straight as an arrow. All except for Mara, she was staring down one person at the table, a man dressed in all black with a hood and a silver featureless mask. Eventually, the masters and warriors started filing out of the room, leaving the four of them: Mara, Erol, and the masked man with his own shadow.

Mara and the masked man were staring daggers at each other, while Erol and the other champion sized each other up. He was almost as tall as Erol was, and similarly built. He wore a black cloak and hood much like the masked man. Eventually, Mara and the masked man left the room, followed by their shadows. After leaving the room, Mara pulled Erol aside to speak to him. "Listen to me," she paused to let her words have more weight, "you may think you can defy me, but you will fight. _They_ will make you fight." as she spoke, Erol could feel something nudging his mental barriers. He didn't know exactly who _they_ were, but he could always feel their presence. They followed Erol wherever he went, keeping him in check. "You may think you won't kill, but you _will_ fight, and you _will _win."

Erol was scowling, "Keep pushing," he leaned closer to her and whispered, "see what happens." He was growing more bold, not caring about how Mara would lash out in anger. He began walking toward the arena, followed by Mara. He would stick to his morals, but he knew she was going to give him a run for his money. The two of them stood near the edge of the arena walls and watched as the two irkens fought for their lives. Erol crossed his arms and analyzed the fighters. He would need to be ready for the fights to come, so he watched, and learned.

Behind him, Mara walked closer to him and leaned against his arm. "You may think yourself holy, but you're not," she started smiling a twisted, evil smile, "You won't admit it, but deep down, you enjoy it." She started running her finger down his tattooed arm.

He didn't answer her, and tried to ignore her. But something in him heard her. Something dark, and dangerous. He focused on the fighters as the man armed with a spear lunged and impaled the other fighter straight through the center of the torso. The spearhead protruded from the back of the now dead irken. The dead body dropped to the ground while the victor, covered in bloody cuts and bruises, proclaimed his victory with both arms raised. The crowd stood and cheered, and deep down, Erol could feel something was off.

Some part of him didn't want to fight, it didn't want to get in the arena in some spectacle. But it wasn't fear that had its grip on him, it was anticipation. Part of him _needed _to fight, it didn't _care_ who watched.

Some sick, twisted piece of him just wanted to kill something.


	8. Answers

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own or claim to own Invader Zim in any way, the copyright goes to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon**

* * *

2176  
Etherium, The Black Desert,  
Planetary time: 0500 hours

Chronos was still sitting on the block of stone, hours after he awoke from his nightmare, simply meditating. He may seem the rough-and-tumble type, but Chronos was actually very spiritual. After all that had transpired, he simply needed time to contemplate. He needed answers; he needed to know what exactly happened to conjoin his own mind with an artificial intelligence. He needed to know why there were still Darquelings on the surface of Etherium. There was still the matter of the irken soldiers who saved his life, but wouldn't give him any information. He sat with his legs crossed, and his hands resting on his knees, palms facing up. He was completely bare of armor on his upper body.

"Ida," he said, pausing his paralytic trance, "I need to ask you a few things."

He felt a shifting in his mind-scape, and sensed that his other half was now aware. In the fore-front of his mind, the familiar image of Ida appeared, although she looked sleepy. _"What do you need to know?"_ she asked, then stifled a long yawn.

Chronos thought over all of what he needed to know, and ordered his thoughts to ask her. As he spoke, he merely whispered almost under his breath, and kept his eyes closed. "Exactly how far does our bond go, you and I?"

She took a moment to prepare an answer, as the image in his mind almost mirrored him: she sat cross-legged, but held a finger to the corner of her mouth in contemplation, _"During you traumatic incident, you landed partly on your PAK, and a surge was sent through it, which led to me via your connection to the suit," _she paused again before finishing, _"In your state of near-death, a line of code in your PAK executed, and dumped the data-core from my container into your brain and PAK."_

Chronos pondered that for a moment, "So that line of code lashed out, and pulled you into my brain, right?" he asked. A moment later, he felt her confirmation somewhere in his mind. "So in a way, you saved my life?" he opened his eyes, and waited for her response.

The image of Ida in his mind was now standing with her hands clasped before her waist, she had a small smile on her face. She simply nodded her affirmation. Chronos' gaze wandered as a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as well.

His smile was wiped away before he asked his next question. He looked at his left hand and massaged his palm with his other thumb in contemplation, "So, what if..." the words were like stones in his throat, "what if... What would happen if you were removed?"

Ida's eyes grew slightly wider, and she looked affraid.

As soon as Chronos noticed her reaction his attention snapped up, as if he would see her standing in the room. He hadn't thought of it in a way that she must have perceived it. Immediately, he felt guilty and started apologizing, but before he said anything, Ida visibly relaxed in his mind. _Right, communication at the speed of thought... _"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," he said, even though both knew it wasn't necessary, "what I want to know, is if you were forcibly removed from me, would I be able to survive?"

She remained quiet for a moment before answering, _"You would live through the separation, but you would be forever changed. Your mind would be unstable, and your PAK would be disfunctional."_ Ida's gaze dropped to the floor, and she became visibly saddened, _"You would be a defect,"_ she quietly admitted.

Chronos closed his eyes, and tried coming to terms with this news. It didn't matter who you were in the Empire, if you were a smallest, a respectable Taller, or even the Tallest, all eyes of the irken race would look upon a defect as some kind of demon. They were seen as abominations. After all, it was the common belief that necessity of The Purge was caused by a defective irken Invader. Chronos closed off his mind again and diverted his concern. He regained his composure and resumed his meditative trance, then continued his questioning with a clear conscience. All the while, knowing that Ida was following along his train of thought, and readied herself to give him the appropriate answers. "So I would survive, although with complications," he stated, now at terms with its full meaning, "but what would that mean for you?" he asked with his voice, _"Would you survive if you were forcefully taken away from me?" _he asked with his mind.

He could feel an uneasiness wash over his mind, and he knew the answer in that instant. _"No..." _she finally answered.

In that moment, Chronos could feel Ida's vulnerability, and Ida could feel Chronos' determination to protect her. They were one in the same, a single being now, and both would do everything in their power to keep that bond safe. Their safety depended on it. _"I was afraid of that," _he said, switching to only speaking mentally at this point. Chronos inquired further into the bond itself, trying to frame the scope of how connected the two of them were. As it turns out, the bond went very deep. Ida lives in his mind like a seperate being, but she can tune the connection to go from the position of an observer through his eyes, all the way to a participant in his actions, like a sixth-sense or another pair of eyes. Chronos needed to know as much as he could about what they were capable of, so the questioning continued for several hours. However, he started noticing a pattern. As the conversation began to steer in a certain direction, Ida would deflect some of her answers and subtly change the topic. He didn't actively think about it to avoid alarming her, and shutting out the topic completely, but he was starting to get worried. _"Ida," _he said, drawing her undivided attention, _"you're hiding something from me."_

Ida stood in the mind-scape in silence, blind-sided by the statement. _How did he know? He analyzed my responses. He is a master at reading people. I still have much to learn about him. _All of these thoughts cascaded in his mind at the exact same time, it bogged down the capacites of his entire mind at the speed the ideas were compounded. He could feel a massive strain on his mind as he looked through the two-way mirror into what was going on in Ida's 'mind', so to speak. _Pain. Something is happening. What is the source? The room is empty. Suit integrity compromised; armor temporarily incomplete, cannot launch radar ping. _Once again, every thought flooded his skull at incredible speed as his mind actively trailed his counterpart. His head was splitting in agony from the overwhelming amount of information. Chronos' concentration crumbled and he clasped his head with both hands in a vain attempt to subside the pain. _Something is very wrong... _That was the last thought before calculations replaced words and Ida diagnosed the problem. Everything went quiet and the pain in Krow's skull vanished. He let out a gasping breath and recollected his barings. Ida was standing completely still after she realized what had happened and severed the link between them. _"Are you alright?" _she asked several minutes after ceasing the flow of information.

Chronos placed a hand over his eye and part of his forehead, and tried relaxing his mind. _"I looked back... into your mind. I saw __your__ thoughts, __all__ of them." _His mind boggled at the sheer amount of information Ida could process at any given moment. He remembered stories of people trying to fully integrate with AI, or their base computer, or even the interface of a battle-mech in an attempt to be more superior than the next guy, but he never thought that experiencing the train of thought of a program could be so painful. _"What happened? Up to this point, we didn't have any problems with a mental connection like that..." _Forming a coherent thought still proved difficult, and his head was still spinning from the ordeal.

The image of the girl in his mind was once again sitting cross-legged, with her eyes averted from the angle Chronos could see her. She was hiding from him. For a long time, she sat silently, carefully choosing her words. _"I'm sorry you had to experience that, but you surprised me," _she finally said. Ida's thumbs were fidgeting in circles above her clasped hands, _"You're right. I _am _hiding something from you. But it is something you are going to have to find out for yourself."_

She remained defiantly quiet for several minutes. _"What is so important that an _AI _of all things finds it necessary to hide from me?" _Ida still refused to answer. Her silent treatment only succeeded in pissing Chronos off, _"Dammit, what are you hiding?!" _he bellowed through his mind.

Ida stood to her full height, and in the mental-scape her image grew larger. The vantage point from which Chronos saw her from with his mind's eye was now eye-to-eye with her. Even more than that, it was like he was face-to-face with a real person. She locked her eyes onto his mind's eye and he realized, he was projecting himself into his mental-scape. Ida had a look of pure defiance and anger, her stubborness with refusing to respond only provoked Chronos even more.

Chronos and Ida both stood eye-to-eye, both were exactly the same height, and both were pissed. He recalled the blanks in his memory, which was the final push that knocked him over the edge. _"Why are you hiding my own mind from me?!" _he yelled. He felt violated, betrayed even.

Ida did not raise her voice, but the look on her face intensified, _"For your own safety," _she said calmly and with cold determination.

Chronos took a step closer until their locked eyes were only inches apart, _"What are you hiding me from?!" _he exploded. His thoughts were shaking the confines of his mind like an earthquake. His body went rigid, as if it were abandoned and his efforts were directed inward, forgetting he had a physical body.

_"YOU!" _she finally screamed, and broke her composure.

Chronos froze. His eyes widened, and his jaw was hanging slack with his mouth slightly open. His eyes were open, but he wasn't looking at her. She made a mistake, through their conflict, their minds melded again. She made a huge mistake letting him get close, his emotions bled over to her, and she got caught in the moment. She slipped, and her barriers holding everything seperate sprung a leak, a massive one. _No... no no no no... "Chronos? Can you hear me?" _she asked as she cupped the sides of his head with both hands.

No response. Chronos wasn't aware, she had let his memories slip, and all of what happened three days ago was being burned back into his mind.

In the mental-scape, his body began to sway before his knees buckled and went limp. Ida looped one arm behind his back to catch him as the other held onto the back of his head, and she slowly lowered him to the ground. His black eyes were still wide open, and his white pupils were shaking in the center of his vision. _"What... What have i done?" _she whispered.

* * *

_"YOU!"_

Ida's outburst confused Chronos, but only for a fraction of a second. After that, his skull was being flooded again. This time however, it wasn't painful, because the information flooding his brain wasn't foreign, it originated from his own mind. Memories, sensations, emotions, fears. Everything bolted to the structure of his mind like missing puzzle pieces.

His physical body tensed, every muscle locking in position. His ethereal body, the one in his mind standing across from Ida, went limp. Chronos could no longer feel his own body, and all he could see was Ida carefully lowering him to the ground in his fantasy world. His head was laying on her lap, and she gently held the sides of his head while looking into his eyes. Chronos was frozon, he could not move a finger, or even move his eyes. The look on Ida's face became thoughtful and sad, like she had done something horrible and an incredible guilt settled in.

His vision began to blur and Ida closed his eyelids. Everything began fading to black, no sound, no sight, no touch nor taste nor smell could pierce the blackness. _No doubt, I'm in for one hell of a ride..._ was his final thought before going under.

* * *

A/N: Alright, I have a much better idea: I'm going to make a whole new chapter for Chronos' next dream sequence, and do an Answers Pt. 2 afterward. Trust me, it'll make a lot more sense this way.

Besides, this gives me an excuse to try an event I've been planning on doing since before I even published this story. WHEW! This is gonna be awesome! Just you wait... *Insert really dark evil laughter here*


	9. The Darkness Within (M-Rated for gore)

**WARNING!** This chapter is M-Rated because of the amount of gore. You have been warned.

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own or claim to own Invader Zim in any way, the copyright goes to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon**

* * *

2176  
Etherium, The Black Desert  
Planetary time: Unknown; time distortion in effect

The inky darkness that settled onto Chronos started to recede, but the most he could regain was his sight. He was laying face up on the ground again, looking through his cracked visor at the night sky. Even though he was aware once more, his vision was fading to black all over again. At the corners of his vision he could see shadows advancing on him. A very familiar figure came to hover over him: the black figure with dagger-like claws and crimson eyes from his nightmare. The hulking Darqueling that embodied his fear. Only Chronos wasn't afraid, he just wanted to bash its skull in.

The Darqueling no longer had the cloak of shadow, it was an ebony clad being built for killing. The creature was muscular, but animalistic, built anatomically like a wolf. It was almost reptilian even. The perfect apex predator. It was inverted, which meant it was standing near his head looking down. Slowly, it reached one of its taloned hands toward his head. Chronos felt something inside him burning, and his senses began returning, but something was off. He could hear popping and cracking from his body below the neck, and his vision cleared and highlighted everything in stark contrast. The muscles in his right arm tensed and in the blink of an eye, he caught the hand reaching for his head. His hand clenched so tightly around its wrist that the bones shattered like glass in his grasp. Chronos watched in shock, because he was not doing this, he only watched through his own eyes as he stood, took his other hand and grabbed the shoulder of the creature, and ripped the entire limb from it. He was already standing before he knew it, and tossed the bloody member aside like trash.

The Darqueling scrambled away clutching at the gaping wound of a shoulder, spewing black, inky blood onto the already black sand. But it didn't get far, because Chronos was already on him, clutching at anything he could and tearing the monster limb from bloody limb with his bare hands. Chronos' logical mind was already gone, replaced by some kind of demon in full survival mode.

He reduced the once fearsome creature to a hollow chest-cavity with only a single leg left attached in just seconds. The white of the ribs jutting from the corpse sharply stood out against the black pile of meat and pool of black liquid. Another was lunging toward him from behind, but his reflexes fired, and he spun at blisteringly high speed, slamming his fist into the top of its skull, punching a hole straight through to the soft brain tissue. The momentum slammed the creature face first into the sand, and its body buckled before soon following.

Chronos was moving at incredibly high speeds, and exerting forces more than ten times greater than what should be possible even with the enhanced muscle fibers of the exo-suit. He stood with his blood-soaked hands formed into talons, dripping like a sponge, ready to shut down anything daring enough to cross the threshold of his reach. His head darted back and forth looking for movement from any direction. Pain flared in his abdomen as something hot burrowed through his armor.

He darted back and saw several soldiers armed with both plasma and projectile weaponry approaching and fireing on anything that moved. The animal that was steering his body by instinct flew into cover. It was so fast that none of the soldiers could track him, or even see him move. It was as if he simply stopped existing in one place, and appeared somewhere else.

The soldiers were standing about 25 meters away, suppressing every Darqueling in the area with sustained weapons fire, and actually winning. The creatures phased into shadow and tried to flee. Some stayed and attempeted a mad dash, darting left and right and closed the gap. Most of them were gunned down with no hope of reaching their prey. But the soldiers couldn't tell Chronos from the monsters, at his speed. Nor did any of them even know where he was.

He was sprinting around the left flank of the thirty man fireing-line at break-neck speeds. Chronos was a living shadow, so fast the eye could never follow. The pure instinct of preservation told him to rip them to shreds, but as he approached a straggler, he stopped. His hand was already extended, aiming for the man's heart. He was going to impale his hand through his back and cease any further functions, but the beast at the pilot's seat of his body was not simply a monster hell-bent on killing. He noticed that each of the soldiers firing on the creatures all had a PAK. They were irken.

Chronos moved silently and slinked down the line of soldiers, gauging their intentions. He peaked into their minds and saw that they were looking for someone. The muzzle flashes in front of them, as well as the monsters at their heels was enough to keep them distracted from the demon that was watching them closely, deciding if it would take their lives or not. Finally, after combing throught the minds of the terrified, but determined irkens, he found the commander. Chronos towered over the significantly shorter irken, and he leaned toward him. He placed a hand just over the top of his covered head and planted a thought into his head, like a virus. The thought would worm its way through his mind, and eventually infect the PAK. From there, it would self-execute a broadcast to the other soldiers in the platoon. The soldiers would be none-the-wiser of its existence either.

Chronos backed away, and disappeared into the darkness. He circled back around to where he landed, keeping behind the dunes to conceal his movements as he sprinted for his weapon. He scooped it up and continued his sprint around to the back of the enormous bonfire that was the derelict ship. His movements were unhindered by physical limits, and his body was sound. Any wounds he sustained from the fall were mended, and his monstrous strength carried his footsteps at speeds that should be impossible for any bipedal being.

As he reached his destination, he could sense that the soldiers on the other side were almost finished pushing the Darquelings back. The demon at the helm of his mind let go of control, and everything started fading back into the familiar darkness. He crumbled to his knees, dropped his weapon, and fell onto his chest. As he lay there, his logical mind returned, and the feeling of sheer terror and confusion took over his being.

The bottomless pit of darkness that is unconsciousness wrenched Chronos free of the memory, and he went under again. Only to resurface in the real world with new-found terror.

* * *

A/N: Okay! I've been trying to get to this point for a long, long time now and finally being able to write a 'Demon' scene feels great! I really hope that you like the feel of this, because it's going to be a recurring theme throughout the story (and the ones to follow ;) ) and not just with Chronos.

Phew! Man, I'm really happy with the way things have turned out so far in the story, and I promise things are really going to start picking up from here.

I hope that you guys have liked the story so far, because it's just getting started. I've got a lot of ideas to throw curve-balls at you, and plans for stringing things together on an epic scale. I really appreciate the feedback I've gotten so far. So please, feel free to comment any questions, concerns or criticisms.

And as always, See you on the other side~


	10. Answers Pt 2

A/N: I have to say, this is by far my favorite chapter so far.

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own or claim to own Invader Zim in any way, the copyright goes to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon**

* * *

2176  
Etherium, The Black Desert  
Planetary time: 0924 hours

Chronos was finally released from the grip of his nightmare and returned to his own body. He would call it a nightmare for the rest of his life, but he would refuse to believe what he saw was instead a memory.

His body was still locked in place, every muscle tensed with just enough pressure to keep him still, and his eyes were still shut. A cold dread slivered its way up his spine, and he finally broke free of whatever gripped him. His eyes shot open, and he quickly stood and retreated with his back to a corner of the small room. He was breathing slow, shallow breaths, and he scanned the room. It was much darker than it should be, but his vision was displaying everything in hyper resolution. He could see single grains of sand, the small dimples in the stone as well as scrapes from when it was carved. The torches affixed to two walls were still lit, but the flames burned low and dark. The flames themselves were tinted black, like the light given off the torch shared in his trepidation. Chronos' senses were ablaze with stimuli, but something in his body didn't fully recognize one of them: he could feel something tugging, or pulling energy. He couldn't make heads or tails of it, but it felt like there was some kind of field surrounding him, and something was in that field.

After calming somewhat, Chronos tried putting his mind at ease. He was still safe. Unlike the last time he woke in this labyrinth, he had more variables, he had a grasp on the situation he was in. He paced back and fourth surveying his surroundings. The torches were still black and wispy, but not burning out, simply burning low. He looked over his body hoping to find no wounds or abnormalities. Against his hopes, he did find something wrong. Very wrong.

His pace slowed until he came to a stop, looking down to his hands outstretched before him. He turned his right hand over to look at the back, and over again to look at his palm then studied his fingers. The bone structure in his hands had slightly changed; his fingers were almost half an inch longer, and narrowed to finer points. The joints between the sections of his fingers shaped his digits out to look like talons, and the skin pigmentation got darker and darker toward the tip of each finger, turning darker green untill the point of all three fingers and thumb were black. He inquisitivly poked at the muscle of his left arm with his right index finger. With just a small amount of pressure he punctured the skin and drew a small amount of dark red liquid. He extended his right hand out to take in the full image of his now deadly bare-hand, and opened and closed his fingers while trying to feel out any unseen differences. It felt stronger and more flexible than before. Chronos then directed his attention to his left arm, the thing that really alarmed him from his initial observation.

The left arm had been altered just as much as the right as far as the bone structure, except for one key feature: the two thin stripes of luminescence along the underside of his left forearm. He ran a finger down the length of the seams, and found that they were warm to the touch with energy. He opened his left hand to look at the knuckles on top of the fingers to find that they too were now glowing with the same luminescent white stripes. On each knuckle was a small rectangle of light which followed the top of his finger bones to the wrist, and each knuckle had a rectangle of light that wraped half-way around the finger.

Chronos repeated the process of opening and closing his left hand, and found that even his prosthetic arm was altered, and even stronger than before. _What a trip... Note to self: leave this bit out of your briefing with Gij... _He smiled and gave a little chuckle at the thought of Gidget's reaction to his now self-altered prosthesis. The humor quickly left him as he returned to the situation at hand: his recent metamorphosis. Although the last details would go unnoticed by Chronos himself, they were still present. Chiefly among those changes, was his eyes. The irises in his eyes, (both the larger iris, as well as the smaller iris below and to the respective side of the eyeball in each eye) had narrowed to sharp white slits, like a reptilian eye.

He spent the better half of an hour limbering up and doing a few exercises, testing his limits. All the while he never noticed the shift in his mind, as a new presence slid its way through his mind.

* * *

Chronos put himself through rigorous routines, but never tired. He was both amazed and hesitant at the same time. He knew the truth, that something was very, very wrong with him, and Ida was only trying to protect him from it. _Him_, to protect him from himself.

_"You were right the first time."_

Chronos stopped what he was doing and stood. He clenched his hands into fists, with his fingertips digging into his palms. _I'm getting really sick of these fucking surprises, _he thought as he scowled in anger and frustration. The voice that spoke was not Ida's, but a voice very similar to his own, if only much darker, and laced with some kind of electric vibe that made the voice pulse with power. _"And just who are you?" _he said with the same force that shook his mind during his fight with Ida.

No response. Chronos crossed his arms and continued pacing back and fourth in the small room.

_"It's getting really crowded in here. Would anyone else like to chime in?" _he asked and waited a few seconds, _"Really? No one else? Feel free to jump in anytime!" _He cupped his face with his hands in frustration, and let his weight tilt back on his heels. He fell to the ground and let his arms spread out and fall to his sides. "Give me a break!" No matter what he tried, Chronos felt that the closer he got to a decisive answer, or just being caught up to speed, some cosmic force felt it necessary to throw a monkey wrench into the gears. He sighed deeply before trying to confront the voice again, _"Are you still there?" _a brief pause, but no answer, _"Hello? anyone?" My god look at me, I'm trying to have a conversation with something in my own mind..._ _"Ida? Why aren't you saying anything?"_

_"She's leaving you to discover yourself," _the deadly voice informed him.

_Oh great... I'm _literally _having a conversation with myself, and I'm talking myself in circles with riddles. _The presence in his mind didn't find humor in his thoughts, but simply listened and observed as Chronos tried to grasp at the abstract concept of what has happened. _"So why won't you directly talk to me? I ask a question and you ignore me. I try to think on my own tangent and you interupt my train of thought and throw me for a loop." _He waited several minutes for any kind of answer, be it a mental nudge, a change in the state of his mind, anything. But he never got a straight answer. He quit trying the direct approach and rolled over off of his PAK to lie on his side in the sand filling the room and the halls of the labyrinth.

He was simply lying there trying to think of a way he could twist his words, or find a loophole to get a rise out of the voice. _Uuuggh... What am I doing? _he thought as he layed his head on his arm like a pillow. His eyes flew open and a thought sparked in his mind. "Wait... What am I doing?!" He shot up to a sitting position as the realization slammed into him: while he was wasting time trying to communicate with a possibly ficticious entity, his squadmates were still MIA. He stood and made a B-line for the door, but as he grabbed the handel and pushed, nothing gave. The door stayed forcefully shut. He brought up his foot and slammed his heel into the wood right next to the knob, but the door remained static. The wood didn't even creak in protest as Chronos put far more than enough force necessary to reduce the door and frame to splinters. What did happen surprised him though. As he exerted more force, whispy black smoke squeezed out of the crevices of the wooden door.

He backed away and tilted his head and squinted his eyes. Then a thought hit him. "You're keeping me here, aren't you?" he said out loud, in skeptic disbelief.

_"You havn't discovered yourself yet," _the voice plainly stated, as if it were the most elementary concept. Chronos scoffed at the cryptic nature of this 'voice,' and continued.

To put a theory to the test, Chronos picked up his helmet and looked through the opening in the base. He powered on the display and looked in the upper corner for the clock. It displayed the time in a small blue readout: 09:27 in digital lettering. He sat there staring at the clock for at least ten minutes, but the clock never changed. Despair started slithering its cold, unforgiving clutches onto Chronos, he wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to find the answers to his continually mounting questions. Never the less, it gave him solace in the fact that he was trapped in this room to his own devices, to do just that. He stood, sighed, and tossed the helmet aside. _"Alright... it's clear that you're keeping me here for a reason. It's also clear that you want me to 'discover myself,' whatever that means." _he paused and massaged the back of his neck. _"So can we just get this over with?"_

For the first time, the mystery voice directly answered his question, _"As you wish."_

The room itself started shaking to its core, and a small pillar of black stone rose from the floor about three feet into the air. The black flames of the two torches burned hotter, and stronger than before, while the rest of the room grew colder and darker aside from those two spots. Chronos felt his body jolt, and something left him, like the air surrounding him moved with a mind of its own. On the floor, his shadow that was being cast left his feet and crawled toward the pillar. _This is it... _he thought as he broke out in a cold sweat. He widened his stance and readied for any tricks that might be in store.

The black flames sparked brightly as two small candle-lights hovered toward the pillar from both directions. The shadow on the ground took on a life of its own as a hand extended to the base of the pillar and seemingly latched onto the stone. In the air just above the shadowed hand, the two flickering lights combined and lowered ever so gently down to the hand. Black wisps started floating off the shadow as the flame came closer and closer, until it finally contacted the silhouetted hand on the stone.

A detonation shook Chronos to his core as the miniscule black flame burst into a flowering cloud of orange flame. Nothing caught fire as the golden feathers of heat and energy rose to the ceiling and dissipated. On the ground, Chronos' disembodied silhouette shuddered, the air vibrated with a dark power until a pale hand shot from the shadow and clutched the base of the pilliar. Its clawed fingers dug into the stone and pulled, surfacing the shoulder and head covered in black smoke. The figure hauled its torso and left arm through the shadow in the floor and clutched at the pillar hand-over-hand like a rope and finally pulled itself comepletely out of the ground.

The cloud surrounding the being faded, and turned to a black liquid that coated its form. It stood and took one great breath. The sound it made while doing so was unlike a panicky gasp for air, and more like the first breath of life. Propped up on the stone pillar, it spun to face Chronos and warily let its weight drop on the half-foot wide pillar. It propped a foot half-way up the pillar with its knee bent, and the other foot flat on the sand.

The being sat there with an air of old age, or brittleness as the black liquid dripped off to reveal a mirror image: whatever this thing that clawed its way into existence was, it looked almost identical to Chronos. He was physically fit, built the same, just as tall, the same antennae, even the changes that had just happened to Chronos were present in this being. That is, until it opened its eyes. The irises were golden-orange spheres that glowed with the same briliance as a star. The surrounding eye was still black.

Chronos leaned against the opposing wall and crossed his arms. "Out of all of these damn surprises in the past few days," he paused and pointed to his doppelganger, "this one, is by far the weirdest."

His double wasn't amused by his jest. He simply stared back into Chronos' own eyes with indifference.

Chronos cleared his throat and began, "So how exactly does this work? Are you going to keep messing with me until I say the right thing, or will you speak to me directly this time?"

"I am not here to educate you," he flatly responded. Even when out in the open, his voice still hummed with a deadly, sharp feeling power.

Chronos tilted his head and tried reading the duplicate, which proved impossible. "Then why _are_ you here?" he asked.

"To judge you."

He narrowed his eyes in annoyance. _To judge me, _he thought. _We'll see about that. _"Then why am I here?"

"To be judged." The bare simplicity of his responses didn't help with Chronos' increasing sense of futility.

"Why won't you let me leave?"

"Because you are not ready."

Chronos blinked. "What?" he asked, flabberghasted. The doppelganger didn't answer. "Ready for what? What is going to happen?"

"Let me clarify," the other being slowly stood to his full height. Before his body fully straightened, he blurred and in a flash of black smoke he appeared directly in front of Chronos in an instant, staring him down eye to eye with a sinister gaze. His skin was bone white, his eyes had narrowed with the pupils contracted into bright orange slits, like Chronos' had earlier, and a massive presence of doom and death had invaded the air between them. "You are not yet worthy to escape my judgement." His imposing double looked down to his abdomen, where Chronos had sunk his lethal claw-like fingers into his ribcage. His gaze returned to meet Chronos', and he smiled. "Not yet anyway."

In another flash of black smoke and incredible speed, the doppelganger was already sitting once again on the small pillar, now with three wide cuts between his ribs. Dark red blood oozed from the wounds. Chronos was scowling at the end of the encounter, not out of anger, or fear, but because he had no idea what was on his shadow's agenda. It was his turn to be unamused by his mirror image. "Just what are you?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"'We'."

Chronos raised his brow and squinted one eye, "Come again?"

"'We', I was correcting you. 'What. are. _we_.'" the shadow instructed. "To answer that, we-" he patted a hand on his chest then gestured to Chronos, "-are technically no longer irken."

If his jaw weren't hinged, it would have hit the floor. Chronos gaped at him for a moment before speaking, "You're-... We're-... I'm... what?!" Of course, the shadow didn't respond, he would only answer a well thought out question to 'judge' Chronos. But his mind was racing with the implications, so the doppelganger second-guessed himself, and continued.

"I am part of you. In essence, I _am _you, and I have been with you for a very long time now, but I was dormant. To put it simply, I should not exist in the world as you know it," he said, trying to fill in the missing information for Chronos to piece the puzzle together.

Chronos was locked in place, trying to piece a coherent thought together. Finally he focused on something his shadow had said, _shouldn't exist... in the world as I know it... _"No..." his mind was finally clear and he regained his composure, "You can't be..." He took a few steps toward the doppelganger, "Where are you from?" he asked, hoping like hell he wouldn't get the answer he was expecting.

His doppelganger stood and looked straight into his eyes, "You already know."

Chronos closed his eyes and whispered, "Just say it. Please. I need to know I'm not crazy."

"I'm from the Nightmare Realm."

* * *

A/N: That's a wrap! My god, you have no idea how hard it was trying to find the right way to drop the whole 'Nightmare Realm' bombshell and make it convincing...

This concludes the first section of the story so far, and will pick up in the next chapter as Chronos (finally) starts on the trail of his brothers-in-arms. And I haven't forgotten Erol, trust me, he's not just some sub-plot, he is increeeedibly important... just you wait.

I actually thought about doing this later in the story, but I thought of a cool way to explain the events of The Purge and explore more on the revelation of the Nightmare Realm. I might put The Conspiracy on hiatus for a while and write another fanfic pertaining to events 170 years in the past. I've been hinting at this in my writing for a while now, if anybody caught that ;)

See you on the other side~


	11. Gladiator

A/N: And we're back! Thus begins the next act in our little story.

So far, I'm very happy with the progress I've made in the story, as well as starting the backstory for the Purge. I appreciate everyone who has kept up to date with my first fanfic, there are actually quite a few of you, and you know who you are, and I'd personally like to thank every one of you. There is one person I'd like thank in particular though.

I have to give a big thanks to missartistique for all of the support you've given me. I mean seriously, if you hadn't come along and supported my writing so far like you have, I might not even be writing this anymore. So thanks for sticking with the story and putting up with me!

Also: I want to share with this story the same deal I've proposed in The Purge. For the details, you can go there and read the author note in chapter two, but to give you a run down, I want to know if you guys would like me to give the songs I use when writing each chapter.

Just like I did with the other fanfic, I'm going to go ahead and post the songs I've used for this chapter. Well, less individual songs and more sound tracks.

The majority of this chapter was written to the Colossi battle themes from 'Shadow of the Colossus' on the PS2 (Freaking awesome game!), and the Beowulf movie main theme on a loop.

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**DISCLAIMER: I do not own or claim to own Invader Zim in any way, the copyright goes to Jhonen Vasquez and Nickelodeon**

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Date: Unknown  
Location: Planet Unknown, The Circus of Taboo  
Planetary time: 2143 hours

Erol stood in the armory, a very large room with racks stacked full of any kind of martial weapon you could think of, from a multitude of different races and cultures. The armory sat underneath the tiers of the amphitheater above them in the gladitorial arena. He was twirling a seven foot long staff in front of him, twisting one hand, catching it with the other, spinning that hand, and so on and so on. He was practicing the motions of maintaining momentum with the metal rod. With this kind of weapon, circles are your ally, so no matter the angle of attack one would be able to counter with the weapon already moving at speed instead of starting from a stop.

He hastened the speed and made his motions more complex, spinning the staff from his sides, behind his back, and spinning it around his shoulder or horizontally around his waist. If there was anything he was a natural at it was fighting, and he was one of the best. Erol spun the staff in front of him again and sped it up as much as he could. The alloy pole spun faster and faster and started bowing at both ends into an S shape, until the ends began to blur. The sound of the air parting before the staff was akin to that of a windmill in a gale. He smiled and slowed the pace until it eventually stopped and he planted the staff firmly on the ground. _I've still got it, _he thought and chuckled. The staff was made of a special alloy to make it stronger and harder than wood, but still as light and flexible.

There was a handful of other champions in the room, either resting after their own matches and nursing wounds, or readying for one to come. The matches didn't always have a mortality factor, but sometimes when the battle weighed heavily in one fighter's favor, they would deem him worthy to fell the other combatant. None of the champions in the armory were watching Erol, but they were all aware of his presence. They all knew the infamous record of the 'Immortal Juggernaut' of the underground. A couple of them had even witnessed the matches from where he got his nickname, matches where he was dragged away from the arena with fatal wounds, and would return days later and fight again like nothing happened.

Sometimes, he would willingly take hits and not even flinch at the blows like some iron statue. To enhance people's fears of his immortality, he fought bare-chested, and bare-foot with just pants as his only defense. It was not his intention to create a legend, he simply saw armor as a pleasantry. If you're going to fight for your life, I want to put my life on the line. This was the philosophy he lived by in the arena, it gave him an escape from the reality: that he would never actually die from this. He had been killed so many times that he lost count, so he took solace in finding new ways to make his meager existence tolerable. Erol fights to challenge the other fighters to do the best that they can, to try breaking the curse of the Immortal Juggernaut. To finally kill him. But they never would.

Erol had an unhealthy obsession with death to most, but to him, it was simply a way of life, a coping mechanism.

* * *

While the champions waited below either in the armory, the medical center, or in the morgue, their masters debated on what course of action their pawns would take. Some challenged others in shows of status, or superiority. Others did it for sport and money. Few of them did it to make a point, and Mara was one of them. She wanted to get even, to regain her respect in the underworld as one of the elite of the elite.

This being the case, she didn't immediately shoot for her objective, she let the others come to her first. Sometime after the first match ended and masked individuals cleaned up the remains of the corpse in the arena, Mara was approached by one of the other nobles. A particularly dark skinned irken by the name of Jekk came to stand by her to overlook the arena. The crowd started chanting for the next pair of fighters to come out and rip each other apart.

Jekk wasn't wearing any sort of disguise, be it lenses to change his eyes, a mask, or even a holographic guise. He had a wicked, twisted smile on his face as he leaned toward Mara without taking his eyes away from the arena, "Just what do you think you're doing here anyway, Mara?" he asked with a thick tone of sarcasm.

Mara crossed her arms in front of her chest and scowled, she hated people like Jekk, the poor deluded fools that they were. Her reputation had taken a hit during the last gathering, and Jekk saw his chance to boast his flawed sense of self-superiority. Her anger peaked and she whipped around to face the dark skinned irken. His eyes were yellow, and his smile was sickening. Even though he was a few inches taller than her, the aura of hate eminating from Mara's person dwarfed the smug fool. "500,000 monies, right here, right now," she spat. If she was going to go through with crushing this scum-bag, she would milk him for everything he had.

Jekk's vision of an easy payday blinded him to Mara's practically burning confidence, he stood straighter and looked down to her as much as he could, "Make it a million, and you're on." He outstretched his hand with his palm facing down, so Mara had to shake his hand with her palm facing up, a psychological sign of submission.

Instead, Mara grabbed Jekk's hand and squeezed with a huge amount of pressure, and turned his hand over. She smiled a grim, evil smile and beat down his smug superiority as much as she could before Erol would finish off the last of what pride remained in him. "Done," she whispered, and quietly kackled like a psychopath. _This is going to be too easy._

* * *

"Juggernaut and Krios, step forward," called a costumed official. Juggernaut was Erol's moniker for the arena, which left Krios to be Jekk's champion.

Both of them retrieved their equipment, and prepared for battle. They exited the armory through separate corridors, so they would enter the arena from opposing sides. As they left, Erol heard muted whispers from the other warriors. Things like "...he's totally gonna hold back...", "Fifty monies says Juggernaut wipes the floor with him...", and "I'll take that action, I say he'll drop in under 5 minutes..."

_Animals, _Erol thought, scowling as he neared the metal gates barring him access to the arena floor. Beyond the gate he could hear the announcers hyping up the crowd, and the crowd themselves were getting louder in anticipation.

It was here, right here in this spot before the doors that Erol prepared. His mind focused and tunnel-visioned souly on his opponent. He ignored the announcer as he heralded the arrival of Krios into the arena, then the doors parted. Bright light spilled into the corridor and Erol stepped into the large circular arena. Near the other door, Krios was showboating, raising his fists up with his weapons in hand: two circular sickles. He held the one in his left hand with the standard grip, and the one in the right hand reversed. Erol tilted his head and squinted his eyes at his opponent. He imagined the only success Krios had in the arena was due to the unorthodox fighting style he surely applied.

Erol's eyes narrowed, his expression became fierce, and he held the staff between his right hand and the crook of his right arm, pointing the end to the ground in front of him. Krios was standing thirty feet away near the center of the ring now, the diameter of the arena was in the area of fifty to sixty feet across. Krios finally let his attention fall onto Erol, and he smiled. He was just a smug as Jekk, a mistake he will regret in just seconds. Krios was a dark green skinned irken like Jekk, but his eyes were the traditional shade of red like most irken. He armored his legs, and his left arm in magenta shaded metal body armor.

Erol didn't move a muscle, but intently watched for Krios' tell before he made his first move. He didn't care to listen for when the match started, since he always took in his enemy's tick's upon meeting them, so he always let his enemy make the first move. Krios did not disappoint, and gave him all the information he needed, rather sloppily at that.

Krios started darting from side to side while closing the gap. Erol inched his leading foot forward and watched once again for Krios' tell. He entered Erol's range and he caught him, hook line and sinker. As soon as Krios was in range he swung out with reckless abandon, swinging his left hand. Erol's only response was to slightly raise the end of the staff and meet his hand. The solid end of the shaft remained static as Krios smashed his closed hand gripping his sickle into the metal bar with excessive force. The distinct, and unmistakable sound of breaking bone filled the air between them as Krios yelped in pain and swung wide with his right hand.

Erol now took the staff in both hands, he steered the forward end of the staff through the crescent blade and torqued the bar counter-clockwise. The force tore the weapon from his hand before the following end of the staff slammed square into his temple, knocking Krios off balance. Instead of pouring every ounce of mementum into his skull, he rotated the staff toward him, so he could steer the tailing end into Krios' ribs.

Krios was now free falling to his right, and Erol spun on his heel and slammed the other into Krios' chest. The force sent the already airborne and disarmed irken sailing ten feet away, where he landed and tumbled for another five feet. Erol resumed his stance and returned the staff under the shoulder of his right arm and his right hand, the exact same way he stood when Krios charged.

Erol blinked and returned to his slightly more casual demeanor. He blinked several times as Krios remained on the ground. He knew he hadn't done enough damage to kill him, but he was shocked at how little he could take in a fight. It was Erol's goal to have a glorious duel with the perfect opponent, but Krios simply threw opening after opening allowing Erol to crumble his entire strategy in a mere moment's notice.

After waiting a few moments, Erol rolled his eyes and turned back to the entrance to the arena. _Well then... maybe tonight won't be so bad if things keep going like this, _he surmised.

He noticed that the arena was deathly slient as he left, then the doors closed. After that, the crowd went into an even louder uproar than before. They couldn't get enough of it. Standing near the rails of the arena, stood Mara and Jekk. Mara stood with her arms still crossed, and a satisfied smile crossed her lips. She narrowed her eyes and looked toward Jekk. She enjoyed every second of the shocked expression on his face as his jaw hung open and choking sounds came from his throat as he couldn't process what just happened. Mara didn't care what he did so long as she got paid.

Erol returned to the armory, without so much as his heart rate rising since he was last there. The warriors who made bets were laughing and mocking the others who bet against the Juggernaut.

He smiled and went back to his practice. _Yeah, this might not be so bad after all. _Little did he know, his battle hungry instinct hiding deep within would have the duel of the ages it sought that very same night, and he would break his one and only rule.

* * *

A/N: Let me know what you guys think about the fight scene here, it was more practice for describing advanced movements in melee combat, and I may have gone overboard on parts and not gone far enough on others. Keep me in the loop with what you think I should be doing differently! Tis always helpful, no matter the advice be it criticism or praise, I just need feedback to improve.

Thank you for your time,  
See you on the other side~


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